Story of the night: Spennymoor Town 1-0 Hartlepool United – trialists get pre-season run out as Pools beaten at the Brewery Field
and live on Freeview channel 276
Frank Mulhern’s 10th minute header from Rob Ramshaw’s free-kick was enough to separate the sides. A Pools trialist had the ball in the net in the second half but was ruled out for offside as the visitors pushed for an equaliser.
Trialist Mark Cullen was withdrawn after just five minutes after suffering an injury. Zaine Francis-Angol and Timi Odusina played the full 90-minutes.
Refresh the page and scroll down through our live blog to see how events unfolded...
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FULL-TIME: Spennymoor Town 1 (Mulhern 10’) Hartlepool United 0
Key Events
- Pools currently have 15 players contracted ahead of the news season: Ben Killip, David Ferguson, Gary Liddle, Timi Odusina, Mark Shelton, Nicky Featherstone, Joe Grey, Gavan Holohan, Josh MacDonald, Tom Crawford, Jamie Sterry, Luke Molyneux, Neill Byrne, Reagan Ogle, Martin Smith
- Pools starting XI: Killip, Ogle, Byrne, Trialist, Odusina, Trialist, Smith, Trialist, Molyneux, Trialist, Trialist
- Pools subs: MacDonald, Liddle, Ferguson, Featherstone, Crawford, Shelton, Holohan; Trialist, Trialist, Trialist
- Spennymoor starting XI: Trialist, Lufudu, Magnay, Trialist, McLean, Moke, Abbott, Anderson, Ramshaw, Hall, Mulhern
- Spennymoor subs: Chandler, Carter, Lister, Hindson, Thompson, Trialist, Kennedy
- Attendance: 985 (approx 200 Pools)
Tonight’s match will be segregated
A Spennymoor Town message read: “This decision was made based on advice from local authorities.
“Away fans will enter via the Tees Crescent turnstiles.Turnstiles are open from 6.30pm.”
One month on - where are Pools’ promotion heroes now?
Fortunately most of them are still at the club and will feature tonight.
Raj Singh hopeful of bringing in a couple of new faces this week
The Pools chairman told The Mail: ““Yes definitely [more transfers to come].
“We haven’t finished because we haven’t got the squad of 22 that Dave’s after so there will definitely be more signings on their way.
“Hopefully there will be a couple [this] week.
“We’re very confident [ahead of the new season]. We’ve signed a few players, there’s ongoing negotiations with others and hopefully Dave will put a squad together that will be competitive and give us a good start to the season.”
No stream tonight
Club commentary is available through both Hartlepool and Spennymoor’s respective channels but we will also be bringing regular updates here in our live blog as well as on Twitter via @HUFCMail.
The match is all ticket will Pools already selling out their allocation.
Welcome back to our first live blog of pre-season!
Dominic Scurr here, back exactly a month on from Pools’ history play-off victory at Ashton Gate.
It’s a very different setting this evening in the form of Spennymoor Town’s Brewery Field but we can expect a good contest against one of the National League North’s most competitive sides over the past few seasons.
Roughly 200 Hartlepool fans are expected to make the short journey to their County Durham neighbours this evening with Dave Challinor expected to give everyone a decent run out including a number of trialists.
Mark Cullen scored as a trialist at the weekend and is expected to feature again tonight along with a number of others.
Let’s hope it’s a good clean game as Pools edge ever closer to the big kick-off on August 7.